Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency: TEAM

Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency
A Christ-Centered TEAM Approach

Do you long to relate and minister effectively in our culturally diverse society?

Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency will equip you to develop four core biblical intercultural relational skills.

Be empowered to relate like Christ.

Enjoy engaging PowerPoint presentations, stirring vignettes,
moving personal applications, and intercultural ministry implications.

Facilitated by Dr. Bob Kellemen

Bob is a nationally-known speaker, writer, consultant, educator, pastor, and counselor. He’s the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, Soul Physicians, Spiritual Friends, Sacred Friendships, and God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. He has equipped thousands of lay people, pastors, and counselors as Chairman of the Master of Arts in Christian Counseling and Discipleship Department (Capital Bible Seminary), as Director of the Biblical Counseling and Spiritual Formation Network, and as Founder/CEO of RPM Ministries.

Our Vision

After successful participation in Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency, Christians of all races will be able to implement the TEAM intercultural relational competencies of:

T: Taking another person’s earthly perspective through empathy and culturally-informed listening.

E: Engaging in bridge-building spiritual conversations through focusing on God’s eternal perspective.

A: Abolishing barriers through forgiveness and reconciliation.

M: Making intercultural peace through spiritual renewal.

Our Passion

Cultivating Intercultural Competency is based upon the biblical conviction that God in Christ is moving all of history toward an eternity where “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language” will stand before the Lamb in united worship (Revelation 7:9-10). Our goal is to equip one another to relate now in light of our eternal future so that God is glorified and others are attracted to Christ by our love.

Contact Us:

To host or attend an RPM Ministries presentation on Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency, contact us at:

RPM Ministries
PO Box 270, Crown Point, IN 46308, 219-662-8138
www.rpmministries.org, rpm.ministries@gmail.com
Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
Christ-Centered, Comprehensive, Compassionate,

and Culturally-Informed Biblical Counseling and Spiritual Formation

The Journey: Day Three--Encountering Every Misery for You

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Three: Encountering Every Misery for You

Welcome to day three of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Three: Encountering Every Misery for You[1]

Olaudah Equiano’s empathy for his sister was Herculean.

“Yes, thou dear partner of all my childish sports! thou sharer of my joys and sorrows! happy should I have ever esteemed myself to encounter every misery for you, and to procure your freedom by the sacrifice of my own!”

What a model of incarnational suffering. In his letter of spiritual consolation to his long-lost sister, he does more than say, “I understand your feelings.” He does more than say, “I feel what you feel.” He says, “I am willing to take on your pain—to encounter your every misery for you.

Equiano is reminiscent of the Apostle Paul who, in Romans 9:2-3, shares his great empathy and unceasing anguish for his Jewish brethren—feeling their feelings. In this passage, Paul wishes himself accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his brothers—encountering their misery for them.

Like Paul and Equiano, we are to be “Jesus with skin on.” As Jesus pitched his tent among us, took on flesh, assumed the very nature of a servant, was made in human likeness, and became sin for us, so we must intimately engage our spiritual friends. Aloof, detached, arms-length ministry is neither biblical nor historical.

Hope Deferred Makes the Heart Sick: Candor

Eventually Equiano was sold to a wealthy widow with a son his age. After two months, he began to settle in, hoping that he had found a form of stability with his new family. However, his hope vanquished when he was stolen again. He rehearses his immeasurable despondency grasping for words to communicate what exceeds human language.

“Thus, at the very moment I dreamed of the greatest happiness, I found myself most miserable: and seemed as if fortune wished to give me this taste of joy only to render the reverse more poignant. The change I now experienced was as painful as it was sudden and unexpected. It was a change indeed from a state of bliss to a scene which is inexpressible by me . . . and wherein such instances of hardship and fatigue continually occurred as I can never reflect on but with horror.”

Have you been there? At the moment of your greatest happiness, life intrudes. Misery waltzes in. The poison of misfortune spoils your banquet of joy. If so, then what? Pretend? Ignore? Seek a diversion?

Equiano chooses candor. He chooses journaling. Both wise choices. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Heart sickness requires the biblical medicine of candor both with God and with self. Very often, such candor is most effective when pen hits paper and we write with honesty about the instances of hardship and fatigue that we experience.

It was during these evil circumstances, and many more to come, that Equiano acknowledged his heavenly Father’s good heart and Christ’s merciful providence in every occurrence of his life.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Who is “Jesus with skin on” for you? How does this person minister to you?

2. For whom are you “Jesus with skin on”? How do you minister to this person by encountering every misery for them?

3. In your life and in your ministry to others, how vital is candor—honesty with self and with God about the agonies of life lived in a fallen world?

4. In your life, where do you need spiritual eyes to trust God’s good heart in every occurrence of your life?


[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Day Two--The Power of Personal Presence

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Two: The Power of Personal Presence

Welcome to day two of our forty-day intercultural journey of promise. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Two: The Power of Personal Presence[1]

Olaudah Equiano and his sister were soon deprived of even the comfort of weeping together.

“The next day proved a day of greater sorrow than I had yet experienced; for my sister and I were then separated, while we lay clasped in each other’s arms; it was in vain that we besought them not to part us: she was torn from me, and immediately carried away, while I was left in a state of distraction not to be described. I cried and grieved continually; and for several days did not eat any thing but what they forced into my mouth.”

Over the ensuing months, Equiano frequently changed masters. Weighed down by grief and a ravenous desire to return to his family, he decided to seize the first opportunity to escape. However, during a failed attempt he realized that the expanse that separated him from his home was too great and too dangerous. “I . . . laid myself down in the ashes, with an anxious wish for death to relieve me from all my pains.”

Left of the Rising Sun

Death refused to visit. Instead, Equiano was sold repeatedly, each time “carried to the left of the sun’s rising, through many dreary wastes and dismal woods, amidst the hideous roarings of wild beasts.” Being “left of the sun’s rising” paints a poetic picture of hopelessness—reflecting an absence of the hope that people have when they are “right of the rising sun” and thus anticipating that the sun will soon approach to dispel their darkness.

Equiano had been traveling in this manner for a considerable time when one evening, to his great surprise, traders brought his dear sister to the house where he was staying. “As soon as she saw me she gave a loud shriek, and ran into my arms. I was quite overpowered; neither of us could speak, but, for a considerable time, clung to each other in mutual embraces, unable to do any thing but weep.”

Ministry Even in Agony

For a time, the joy of their reunion distracted them from their misfortunes. But this, too, passed. “For scarcely had the fatal morning appeared, when she was again torn from me for ever! I was now more miserable, if possible, than before. The small relief which her presence gave me from pain was gone, and the wretchedness of my situation redoubled my anxiety after her fate, and my apprehensions lest her sufferings should be greater than mine, when I could not be with her to alleviate them.”

Even in his agony, Equiano offers words of insight into ministry. Note that it was “her presence” that gave him relief from his pain, and that he longed to “be with her to alleviate” her suffering. Before all else fails, implement what never fails—personal presence.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. How could your people-ministry grow if you focused on the power of presence?

2. Have you ever experienced the hopelessness of feeling like you were to the left of the rising sun—that your dark night would never end? If so, how did God comfort you during the dark night of your soul?


[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

Is Targeted Evangelism Biblical?

Is Targeted Evangelism Biblical?

I received a great comment post on my blog about intercultural ministry. Please read Demetrius' excellent question. Please read my brief response. Then please share your thoughts/

Is Targeted Evangelism Biblical?

Doc K: How would you apply inter culturalism on the mission field? The reason I ask is that I am a short term missionary in Cambodia for 7 months. In Cambodia there are various people groups such as the Vietmese, Khmer, Chinese, Korean, Nigerians, and Ex-pats to name a few. However, many the missionaries are only targeting specific groups to start their churches due to immense barriers between the races and the classes. The irony is I am African-American ministering primarily to Cambodian American Deportees who have an inner city disopositon and attitude toward life and I minister to the poor Khmer in the slums of Phonm Penh. Demetrius Walton.

Targeted Evangelism and Intercultural Discipleship

Demetrius, That's a great question. While the ultimate goal of heaven and thus our ultimate goal on earth is intercultural worship, it seems that wisdom could still dictate an approach like you describe in your ministry under certain situations. Since you are working to evangelize the unsaved, we cannot expect the unregenerate to act regenerate until they are regenerated! That being said, a major part of the discipleship process then should include intercultural reconciliation. What a testimony and witness it would be for the entire region if/when Vietmese, Khmer, Chinese, Korean, Nigerians, and Ex-pats began forgiving one another, reconciling with one another.

Your Thoughts?

And what do others think?

Are We in a Post-Racial Society?

Are We in a Post-Racial Society?

As I always do, I appreciated and enjoyed the interview yesterday with Steve Hiller and Michelle Strombeck of Moody Radio's Prime Time Chicago. We discussed Beyond the Suffering and the state of race relationships in America.

Steve asked me the perceptive question, "Bob, with the election of President Obama, are we now a post-racial soceity?"

My answer?

Well...I'm interested in your answer also. So...please join the conversation.

Okay...my answer...

We have made progress. Obviously, the election of an African American President, an election where millions of whites voted for an African American, is light years ahead of where we were just a generation ago.

However, we still have issues to deal with. Even since the election, I could share half-a-dozen examples that friends of mine have shared with me of racial tensions, misunderstandings, prejudice...

Just since the interview yesterday, I have received several "Thank You" emails from "new friends" (people I "met" only through the radio program and their response). They were thankful for the "balance" I brought to the issue: progress, but work to do. They shared examples in their lives of current struggles against intolerance.

Those who know me and read my blog know I am not a person interested in stirring up controversy. You know I strive to be a bridge-builder and that I strive to explore biblical solutions to relationship problems. That's why I am inviting you to join me on The Reconciliation Journey from January 19 to February 28 on this blog. That's why I am teaching around the country on A Christ-Centered TEAM Approach to Intercultural Relationships.

That said, sometimes we have to get the truth out there. So...what is your experience? What is your opinion? Are we a post-racial society? Are we there yet? If so, what examples do you see? If not, what examples do you see and what can we do to get there?

Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency

Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency:
A Christ-Centered TEAM Approach
Revelation 7:9-10

Many of you have asked to hear more about my presentation on intercultural (multicultural) ministry. Here's an outline.

Presentation Objectives

The primary goal of Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency: A Christ-Centered TEAM Approach is to equip participants to develop four championship TEAM skills that empower them to function effectively in our culturally diverse society. Participants will learn how to relate harmoniously by building bridges of understanding across diverse cultures. This seminar is based upon the biblical conviction that God in Christ is moving all of history toward an eternity where “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language” will stand before the Lamb in united worship (Revelation 7:9-10). Thus the eternal goal is to equip participants to relate interculturally now in light of their eternal future so that God is glorified and others are attracted to Christ by their love.

Student Learning Outcomes

After successful participation in Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency: A Christ-Centered TEAM Approach, participants will be able to implement the TEAM intercultural relational competencies of:

T: Taking another person's earthly perspctive through empathy and culturally-informed listening.

E: Engaging in bridge-building spiritual conversations through focusing on God's eternal perspective.

A: Abolishing barriers through forgiveness and reconciliation.

M: Mentoring interculturally competent disciples through envisioning, empowering, and equipping.

Resources

I have a five-page outline plus a 60-slide PowerPoint presentation. If you are interested in having me speak to your group, feel free to contact me.

A Prayer for the Body of Christ

A Prayer for the Body of Christ

April Boycik is a former student of mine and a lifelong friend. Her prayerful response to my posts on intercultural ministry, with her permission, is posted below.

"Lord,

Let me plug in and serve together with whom you would have me serve, as you would, where you would...

Realizing my brothers and sisters, different from me culturally, politically, educationally are all called according to your purpose, too.

Together, we make the body.

Sepearate, we are but amputees."

Toward a Description of Intercultural Ministry/Relating

Toward a Description of Intercultural Ministry/Relating

In the old game show, Name That Tune, contestants would say, "I can name that tune in ____ notes" (the lower the number of notes, the better). Well, I canNOT name the "tune" of intercultural (or multicultural or cross-cultural) ministry/relating in just a few notes.

In fact, one specialist in this area lists more than a dozen different names for the concept related to intercultural/multiculturalism. That's a dozen names--each with its own set of scores of definitions.

So, is the cause hopeless? Nope.

But, keep in mind the humble title of this blog post: "toward a description..." It is not a final anything. And it is not even a "definition." It is a beginning description.

I'll save the more technical aspects for a forty-semester hour graduate course, and try to keep matters relatively straight forward for a somewhat short blog post. Of course, that means these basic descriptions have much wiggle room and can easily be quibbled with. That's good--makes for expanding the conversation.

What Is Culture?

Let's start with a supposedly simple word like "culture." This word itself has a myriad of definitions. My working definition of culture is based upon a biblical theology/psychology of how God designed us. Here are two similar ways I would word my description of culture:

Culture is the shared relational, rational, volitional, and emotional patterns for living that people use in social interactions and learn through social interactions.

Culture is the system of shared patterns of relating, thinking, acting, and feeling that members of society use to relate to one another and to others, and that are learned through social interactions.

What Is Intercultural Relational Competency?

First, I use intercultural relational competency interchangeably with multicultural skillfulness. Here are a few ways I describe these terms:

Intercultural relational competency is the ability to relate like Christ with people from other cultures.

Intercultural relational competency is the ability to relate like Christ when interacting with people whose patterns of relating, thinking, acting, and feeling are culturally different (diverse) from yours.

What Is a Christ-Centered TEAM Approach to Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency?

Wow! That question alone is a mouthful!

Just as I build my description of "culture" on a biblical theology of people, so I build my description of competency based upon a biblical methodology of change. In my biblical theory of how to help people to change, I highlight sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding (SHRG). For intercultural or multicultural or cross-cultural ministry, I take these four terms and turn them into an acrostic: TEAM.

T: Tacking Another Person's Perspective (Or Tracking Another Person's Perspective)

This is the ability to empathize with someone whose patterns of relating, thinking, acting, and feeling developed out of a diverse culture. It is the ability to walk in the shoes of another person from another culture. It requires culturally-informed listening, among many other "skills."

E: Engaging in Bridge-Building Conversations

This is the ability to encourage another person to assess their own individual, cultural, and universal experience through the lens of God's eternal Person, perspective, purposes, and plans. It includes the both/and "skill" of listening to the earthly story while jointly weaving in God's eternal, heavenly story.

A: Accepting, Reconciling with, and Forgiving One Another

This is the ability to apply Christ's forgiveness of us to our intercultural relationships. It highlights the fact that "racism" (another word with multiple definitions) is not a skin issue but a sin issue. It recognizes that integration alone is a legislative/law issue, while reconciliation is a heart issue, a spiritual issue. This includes the "skill" of being an ambassador of intercultural reconciliation.

M: Making Disciples Who Are Interculturally Competent (Or Mentoring Disciples...)

This is the ability to equip equippers. It is the ability to envision, empower, and equip others to be interculturally Christlike. It is a spiritual direction/discipleship process that passes on and stirs up Christlike intercultural love.

A Soul Care and Spiritual Direction Model

What I am developing/suggesting is a soul care and spiritual direction model of intercultural (multicultural, cross-cultural) competence. It is not simply an individual model: change one person. Nor is it simply an institutional model: change the law. It is a spiritual, ecclesiological model: a Christ-centered, TEAM approach to cultivating Christlike intercultural relational competency.

My passion is to equip the Body of Christ to relate like Christ when interacting with others whose patterns of relating, thinking, acting, and feeling are culturally different from them.

Thus, intercultural competency certainly includes evangelism, since the unsaved and the saved, even from the same home, have diverse patterns of relating, thinking, acting, and feeling.

But it goes far beyond evangelism (ambassadorship) to include fellowship, worship, stewardship, and discipleship. Christlike intercultural relational competency includes how we relate to one another of different cultures in church, at work, in our neighborhoods...it is all-inclusive.

Just How Biblical Is Intercultural Ministry?

Just How Biblical Is Intercultural Ministry?

I've been working on a new presentation on Cultivating Christlike Intercultural Relational Competency: A Christ-Centered TEAM Approach. Of course, if it is Christ-Centered, then it is going to be everywhere in the Bible, right?

Is it?

For sure!

Consider just a few examples of how central intercultural ministry is to the eternal plan of God.

1. Intercultural Ministry Is a God Thing: James 2:1-13; Romans 2:4-11. For God so loved the world. God is no respecter of persons. He is calling people from all nations to His forever family. He calls us to godly living that shows no favoritism.

2. Intercultural Ministry Is a Christ Thing: Matthew 28:19-20; John 4:1-42. Christ calls us to make disciples of all nations. Christ models intercultural ministry in breaking social barriers to witness to the Samaritan women, resulting in the people proclaiming that He is indeed the Savior of the world.

3. Intercultural Ministry Is a Spirit Thing: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. We are all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks. The Spirit purposefully combined the diverse members into one Body so that there would be no division.

4. Intercultural Ministry Is a Salvation Thing: Ephesians 2:11-22; Revelation 5:9. Christ's salvation purpose is to reconcile, make peace, and create in Himself one new people who have full and equal access to the Father by the Spirit, making us all fellow citizens and joint members of God's household. The Lamb purchased for God people from every tribe, language, people, and nation.

5. Intercultural Minsitry Is a Church Thing: Acts 2:14-47; Acts 10:1-48. The first Church and the Church throughout Acts integrated believers from diverse cultures.

6. Intercultural Ministry Is a Sanctification Thing: Colossians 3:1-11. As we put off the old and put on the new person in Christ we are renewed not only individually, but also corporately where there is no Greek or Jew, barbarian or Scythian, but Christ is all and is in all.

7. Intercultural Minsitry Is an Eternal Thing: Revelation 7:9-10. As John peers into eternity, he witnesses a great multitude that no one can count from every nation, tribe, people, and language worshipping God together forever.

Is intercultural ministry biblical?

I think so!

Join in again tomorrow when we address the question, "So just what is intercultural ministry?"

Racial Identity in American Life

Racial Identity in American Life

Here’s an interesting article by Jesse Washington of the AP.

Here’s the original link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081213/ap_on_re_us/obama_s_not_black

Obama's True Colors: Black, White ... or Neither?

By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer Jesse Washington, Ap National Writer – Sat Dec 13, 2008

A perplexing new chapter is unfolding in Barack Obama's racial saga: Many people insist that "the first black president" is actually not black.

Debate over whether to call this son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial — or, in Obama's own words, a "mutt" — has reached a crescendo since Obama's election shattered assumptions about race.

Obama has said, "I identify as African-American — that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it." In other words, the world gave Obama no choice but to be black, and he was happy to oblige.

But the world has changed since the young Obama found his place in it.

Intermarriage and the decline of racism are dissolving ancient definitions. The candidate Obama, in achieving what many thought impossible, was treated differently from previous black generations. And many white and mixed-race people now view President-elect Obama as something other than black.

So what now for racial categories born of a time when those from far-off lands were property rather than people, or enemy instead of family?

"They're falling apart," said Marty Favor, a Dartmouth professor of African and African-American studies and author of the book "Authentic Blackness."

"In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois said the question of the 20th century is the question of the color line, which is a simplistic black-white thing," said Favor, who is biracial. "This is the moment in the 21st century when we're stepping across that."

Rebecca Walker, a 38-year-old writer with light brown skin who is of Russian, African, Irish, Scottish and Native American descent, said she used to identify herself as "human," which upset people of all backgrounds. So she went back to multiracial or biracial, "but only because there has yet to be a way of breaking through the need to racially identify and be identified by the culture at large."

"Of course Obama is black. And he's not black, too," Walker said. "He's white, and he's not white, too. Obama is whatever people project onto him ... he's a lot of things, and neither of them necessarily exclude the other."

But U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield, a black man who by all appearances is white, feels differently.

Butterfield, 61, grew up in a prominent black family in Wilson, N.C. Both of his parents had white forebears, "and those genes came together to produce me." He grew up on the black side of town, led civil rights marches as a young man, and to this day goes out of his way to inform people that he is certainly not white.
Butterfield has made his choice; he says let Obama do the same.

"Obama has chosen the heritage he feels comfortable with," he said. "His physical appearance is black. I don't know how he could have chosen to be any other race. Let's just say he decided to be white — people would have laughed at him."

"You are a product of your experience. I'm a U.S. congressman, and I feel some degree of discomfort when I'm in an all-white group. We don't have the same view of the world, our experiences have been different."

The entire issue balances precariously on the "one-drop" rule, which sprang from the slaveowner habit of dropping by the slave quarters and producing brown babies. One drop of black blood meant that person, and his or her descendants, could never be a full citizen.

Today, the spectrum of skin tones among African-Americans — even those with two black parents — is evidence of widespread white ancestry. Also, since blacks were often light enough to pass for white, unknown numbers of white Americans today have blacks hidden in their family trees.

One book, "Black People and their Place in World History," by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, even claims that five past presidents — Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge — had black ancestors, which would make Obama the sixth of his kind.

Mix in a few centuries' worth of Central, South and Native Americans, plus Asians, and untold millions of today's U.S. citizens need a DNA test to decipher their true colors. The melting pot is working.

Yet the world has never been confronted with such powerful evidence as Obama. So as soon as he was elected, the seeds of confusion began putting down roots.

"Let's not forget that he is not only the first African-American president, but the first biracial candidate. He was raised by a single white mother," a Fox News commentator said seven minutes after Obama was declared the winner.

"We do not have our first black president," the author Christopher Hitchens said on the BBC program "Newsnight." "He is not black. He is as black as he is white."

A Doonesbury comic strip that ran the day after the election showed several soldiers celebrating.

"He's half-white, you know," says a white soldier.

"You must be so proud," responds another.

Pride is the center of racial identity, and some white people seem insulted by a perception that Obama is rejecting his white mother (even though her family was a centerpiece of his campaign image-making) or baffled by the notion that someone would choose to be black instead of half-white.

"He can't be African-American. With race, white claims 50 percent of him and black 50 percent of him. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all," Ron Wilson of Plantation, Fla., wrote in a letter to the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

Attempts to whiten Obama leave a bitter taste for many African-Americans, who feel that at their moment of triumph, the rules are being changed to steal what once was deemed worthless — blackness itself.

"For some people it's honestly confusion," said Favor, the Dartmouth professor. "For others it's a ploy to sort of reclaim the presidency for whiteness, as though Obama's blackness is somehow mitigated by being biracial."

Then there are the questions remaining from Obama's entry into national politics, when some blacks were leery of this Hawaiian-born newcomer who did not share their history.

Linda Bob, a black schoolteacher from Eustis, Fla., said that calling Obama black when he was raised in a white family and none of his ancestors experienced slavery could cause some to ignore or forget the history of racial injustice.

"It just seems unfair to totally label him African-American without acknowledging that he was born to a white mother," she said. "It makes you feel like he doesn't have a class, a group."

There is at least one group eagerly waiting for Obama to embrace them. "To me, as to increasing numbers of mixed-race people, Barack Obama is not our first black president. He is our first biracial, bicultural president ... a bridge between races, a living symbol of tolerance, a signal that strict racial categories must go," Marie Arana wrote in the Washington Post.

He's a bridge between eras as well. The multiracial category "wasn't there when I was growing up," said John McWhorter, a 43-year-old fellow at the Manhattan Institute's Center for Race and Ethnicity, who is black. "In the '70s and the '80s, if somebody had one white parent and one black parent, the idea was they were black and had better get used to it and develop this black identity. That's now changing."

Latinos, whom the census identifies as an ethnic group and not a race, were not counted separately by the government until the 1970s. After the 1990 census, many people complained that the four racial categories — white, black, Asian, and American Indian/Alaska native — did not fit them. The government then allowed people to check more than one box. (It also added a fifth category, for Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders.)

Six million people, or 2 percent of the population, now say they belong to more than one race, according to the most recent census figures. Another 19 million people, or 6 percent of the population, identify themselves as "some other race" than the five available choices.

The White House Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the census, specifically decided not to add a "multiracial" category, deeming it not a race in and of itself.

"We are in a transitional period" regarding these labels, McWhorter said. "I think that in only 20 years, the notion that there are white people and there are black people and anyone in between has some explaining to do and an identity to come up with, that will all seem very old-fashioned."

The debate over Obama's identity is just the latest step in a journey he unflinchingly chronicled in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father."

As a teenager, grappling with the social separation of his white classmates, "I had no idea who my own self was," Obama wrote.

In college in the 1970s, like millions of other dark-skinned Americans searching for self respect in a discriminatory nation, Obama found refuge in blackness. Classmates who sidestepped the label "black" in favor of "multiracial" chafed at Obama's newfound pride: "They avoided black people," he wrote. "It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around."

Fast-forward 30 years, to the early stages of Obama's presidential campaign. Minorities are on track to outnumber whites, to redefine the dominant American culture. And the black political establishment, firmly rooted in the civil rights movement, questioned whether the outsider Obama was "black enough."

Then came the primary and general elections, when white voters were essential for victory. "Now I'm too black," Obama joked in July before an audience of minority journalists. "There is this sense of going back and forth depending on the time of day in terms of making assessments about my candidacy."

Today, it seems no single definition does justice to Obama — or to a nation where the revelation that Obama's eighth cousin is Dick Cheney, the white vice president from Wyoming, caused barely a ripple in the campaign.

In his memoir, Obama says he was deeply affected by reading that Malcolm X, the black nationalist-turned-humanist, once wished his white blood could be expunged. "Traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction," Obama wrote. "I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border."